A dozen paces away stood a clerk of the harbour master’s office, hesitating overlong on his approach to demand moorage fees. The dunked bhokarala clambered back on to the deck, one with a large fish in its mouth, causing others to rush in to fight over the prize.
The woman had stepped back from her perch alongside the prow, but instead of crossing the main deck to disembark, she instead vanished down through the cabin hatch.
The clerk edged forward then quickly retreated as a half-dozen bhokarala crowding the rail near the gangplank bared their fangs at him.
Common among all crowds, fascination at novelty was short-lived, and before too long, as nothing else of note occurred beyond the futile attempts by the clerk to extract moorage fees from a score of winged apes that did little more than snarl and make faces at him — one going so far as to pelt him with a fresh fishhead — fixed regard wavered and drifted away, back to whatever tasks and whatever demands had required attention before the ship’s appearance. Word of the glorious woman and her absurd crew raced outward to infest the city, swift as starlings swirling from street to street, as the afternoon stretched on.
In the captain’s cabin aboard the ship, Scillara watched as Sister Spite, a faint smile on her full lips, poured out goblets of wine and set them down before her guests seated round the map-table. That smile collapsed into a sad frown — only slightly exaggerated — when Cutter twisted in his chair, too frustrated to accept the peaceable gesture.
‘Oh, really,’ Spite said, ‘some maturity from you would be a relief right now. Our journey has been long, yes, but I do reiterate that delaying our disembarkation until dusk remains the wisest course.’
‘I have no enemies here,’ Cutter said in a belligerent growl. ‘Only friends.’
‘Perhaps that is true,’ Spite conceded, ‘but I assure you, young assassin, Darujhistan is not the city you left behind years past. Fraught, poised on the very edge of great danger-’
‘I know that! I feel it — I felt it before I ever came aboard your cursed ship! Why do you think just sitting here, doing nothing, strikes me as the worst decision possible? I need to see people, I need to warn-’
‘Oh dear,’ Spite cut in, ‘do you truly believe that you alone are aware of the danger? That all hangs in the balance right there at your fingertips? The arrogance of youth!’
Scillara filled her pipe with rustleaf and spent a moment sparking it alight. Heavy, brooding emotions filled the cabin. Nothing new in that, of course. This entire journey had been chaotic and contrary from the moment she, Cutter, Barathol and Chaur had been fished from the seas even as the sky flung giant goblets of fire down on all sides. Worshipful bhokarala, a miserable mule, an old hag who collapsed into a heap of spiders if one so much as looked askance in her direction. A scrawny, entirely mad High Priest of Shadow, and a brokenhearted Trell. And while Spite comported herself with all the airs of a coddled princess, she was in truth a Soletaken sorceress, dreadfully powerful and dangerously fey as some Elder Goddess. No, a more motley shipload of passengers and crew Scillara could not imagine.
And now here we are. Poor Darujhistan! ‘Won’t be long now,’ she said to Cutter. ‘We’re better off trying to stay as far beneath notice as possible.’
Iskaral Pust, seated on his chair with his legs drawn up so that his toadlike face was between his knees, seemed to choke on that comment; then, reddening and even bulging, he scowled at the table. ‘We have a crew of mad apes!’ His head tilted and he stared agog at Scillara. ‘We could smoke dried fish with her — just hang ’em in her hair! Of course, the fish’d end up poisoning us all, which might be her plan all along! Keep her away from food and drink — oh yes, I have figured her out. No High Priest of Shadow can be fooled so easily! Oh, no. Now, where was I?’ His brows knitted, then suddenly rose threateningly as he glared at her. ‘Beneath notice! Why not just sneak out in that cloud of yours, woman?’
She blew him a smoky kiss.
Spite set her goblet down. ‘The dispositions facing us now are probably worth discussing, don’t you think?’
This question, addressed to everyone, yielded only blank stares.
Spite sighed. ‘Mappo Runt, the one you seek is not on this continent. Even so, I would advise you cross overland here, perhaps as far as Lamatath, where you should be able to procure passage to the fell empire of Lether.’
The Trell studied her from beneath his heavy brows. ‘Then I shall not linger.’
‘Oh, he mustn’t linger,’ Iskaral Pust whispered. ‘No no no. Too much rage, too much grief. The giant oaf cannot linger, or worse malinger. Malingering would be terrible, and probably against the law anyway. Yes, perhaps I could get him arrested. Locked up, forgotten in some nefarious dungeon. Oh, I must cogitate on this possibility, all the while smiling benignly!’ And he smiled.
Mogora snorted. ‘Husband,’ she said sweetly, ‘I have divined your fate. In Darujhistan you shall find your nemesis, a catastrophic clash. Devastation, misery for all, the unleashing of horrible curses and ferocious powers. Ruin, such ruin that I dream each night of blessed peace, assured that the universe is in balance once more.’
‘I can hardly imagine,’ Spite said, ‘Shadow imposing balance of any sort. This husband of yours serves a diabolical god, a most unpleasant god. As for your divination, Mogora, I happen to know that you possess no such talents-’
‘But I can hope, can’t I?’
‘This is not the world for wishful thinking, dear.’
‘Don’t you “dear” me! You’re the worst kind of witch, a good looking one! Proof that charm is naught but a glamour-’
‘Oh, wife,’ Iskaral Pust crooned, ‘would that you could glamour yourself. Why, an end to my nausea-’
With a snarl Mogora veered into a seething mass of spiders, spilling down over the chair and on to the plank floor, then scattering in all directions.
Iskaral Pust snickered at the others. ‘That’s why I sit like this, you fools. She’ll bite you all, at every chance!’ He jabbed a gnarled finger at Scillara, ‘Except you, of course, because you make her sick!’
‘Good,’ she replied, then glanced across at Barathol. The huge black-skinned man was half smiling as he observed the others. Behind him stood Chaur, his foolish grin unwavering even as he tried stamping on spiders. ‘And what of you, blacksmith? Eager to explore this grand city of blue fire?’
Barathol shrugged. ‘I believe I am, although it has been some time since I last found myself among crowds. I imagine I might even enjoy the anonymity.’ He seemed to take note of his hands where they rested on the table before him, and saw something in their skein of scars that made him frown, then slowly withdraw them from view. His dark eyes shifted from hers, almost shyly.
Not one for grand confessions, Scillara well knew. A single regret could crush a thousand proud deeds, and Barathol Mekhar had more regrets than most mortals could stomach. Nor was he young enough to brazen his way through them, assuming, of course, that youth was indeed a time of bold fearlessness, that precious disregard for the future that permitted, well, almost anything, so long as it served an immediate need.
‘I admit,’ said Spite, ‘to a certain melancholy when visiting vibrant cities, as is this Darujhistan. A long life teaches one just how ephemeral is such thriving glory. Why, I have come again upon cities I knew well in the age of their greatness, only to find crumbled walls, dust and desolation.’
Cutter bared his teeth and said, ‘Darujhistan has stood for two thousand years and it will stand for another two thousand — even longer.’
Spite nodded. ’Precisely.’
‘Well, we hardly have the leisure of living for millennia, Spite-’
‘You clearly weren’t listening,’ she cut in. ‘Leisure is not a relevant notion. Consider the weariness that often afflicts your kind, late in their lives. Then multiply that countless times. This is the burden of being long-lived.’